The NCAA Men's Tennis Championships are separate tournaments held to crown team, individual, and doubles champion in American college tennis. The first intercollegiate championship was held in 1883, 23 years before the founding of the NCAA, with Harvard's Joseph Clark taking the singles title. The same year Clark partnered to Howard Taylor to win the doubles title.
Since 1963, the NCAA organizes separate tournaments for Division I and II. A tournament for Division III was added in 1973. However, after 1995, the NCAA no longer holds a Division II tournament.
From 1946-1976, players' individual performances were awarded points which were tallied to determine the NCAA "team" champion. In 1977, the NCAA began a dual-match single-elimination team tournament with 16 schools to determine the team championship. Subsequently expanded to include byes for 12 teams in the first round, the team tournament adopted its current 64-team single-elimination format in 1999.
The Grand Slam tournaments, also called majors, are the four most important annual tennis events. They offer the most ranking points, prize money, public and media attention, the greatest strength and size of field, and greater number of "best of" sets for men. The Grand Slam itinerary consists of the Australian Open in mid January, the French Open in May and June, Wimbledon in June and July, and the US Open in August and September. Each tournament is played over a period of two weeks. The Australian and United States tournaments are played on hard courts, the French on clay, and Wimbledon on grass. Wimbledon is the oldest, founded in 1877, followed by the US in 1881, the French in 1891, and the Australian in 1905. However, of these four, only Wimbledon was a major before 1924/25, the time when all four became designated Grand Slam tournaments.
The term Grand Slam also, and originally, refers to the achievement of winning all four major championships in a single calendar year within one of the five events: men's and women's singles; men's, women's, and mixed doubles. In doubles, one team may accomplish a Grand Slam playing together or one player may achieve it with different partners. The term "Grand Slam" without qualification refers to winning the four majors in a single calendar year.